A Bay Area football star was stabbed to death at a party on Saturday night, and another teenager was arrested early Monday morning on charges of murder in connection with his death.
As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle and a handful of other outlets, Newark (Calif.) High running back Osana Futi, an 18-year-old senior, was stabbed to death after a fight at a house party in Newark on Saturday night. According to the Chronicle, an 18-year-old named Abraham Ibrahim Hade was arrested and held on charges of murder on Monday, and was scheduled to appear in Fremont court on Tuesday.
To say that Futi's death came a shock is a sincere understatement. The senior was a standout running back and linebacker for Newark High throughout his high school career, and planned to attend community college to compete in football beginning in fall 2012. In April, he competed in the Poly Bowl, a high school all-star game for athletes of Polynesian decent.
Newark High School held a charitable bake sale and fundraising effort to try and help defray the cost of Futi's funeral on Monday afternoon.
"He and the quarterback were just in my office on Thursday, talking about their plans about their future lives," Newark Unified School District superintendent David Marken told the Chronicle.
Even more tragically, Futi's death follows a similar stabbing death of one of his best friends, 17-year-old Justice Afoa, who was killed in late 2010.
A fellow Newark teen, Afoa was among Futi's best friends, with Futi expelled from the school district at one point for threatening a fellow student who insulted Afoa following Afoa's death.
Now Futi has followed in Afoa's footsteps in the most troubling way possible, all in eerily similar circumstances to the tragedy that first shaped Futi's life and may have been helping drive him forward to a better future.
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